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From Charleston Daily Mail
Central W.Va.'s Public Institution Has A Rich History
Bob Kelly
bobkelly@dailymail.com
Political Editor
Tuesday January 21, 2003
It has been widely acknowledged for decades that West Virginia operates too many colleges. Now the Legislature, which
has never mustered the gumption to do anything about it, seems poised to order the death of two institutions.
One of the names that comes up is Glenville State College in rural Gilmer County.
It offends college partisans that Glenville's rich history of service counts for so little. The college has been offering people a
way up for a very long time.
For the first 50 years, a riverboat trip on the Little Kanawha was the best way to reach Glenville. Even today, it isn't easy to
get there. But for many thousands of people, the trip has been transforming.
In 1997, former professor Nelson Wells, 92, co-authored "Lighthouse on the Hill," a history of the school's first 125 years.
Wells wrote about Thomas Marcellus Marshall, a resourceful leader of what was known in the 1870s as the Glenville Branch
of the West Virginia Normal School.
"He hauled coal, cleaned the building and did whatever else was necessary for a time while the school was without state
funding."
A state deficit now threatens the college Marshall guided through the tough times of long ago. But among 18,000 living alumni
are plenty of formidable people standing ready, as he did, to fight for the school's survival.
Marge Burke, 70, is a 1953 graduate who spent 13 years in the House of Delegates, including a stint as majority whip.
"I don't let it excite me," Burke said of House-passed legislation that calls on the Higher Education Policy Commission to cull
the herd. "Somebody showed me a newspaper clipping the other day from 1931, and they were talking about closing the
college then."
Harvard-educated Edward G. Rohrbough, who started teaching in 1901 and served as president from 1918 to 1942,
headed off that Depression-era crisis, enabling Glenville to live on.
"I'm grateful," Burke said. "When I graduated from Burnsville High School in 1949, I didn't have a dime to buy a bottle of
pop.
"But it didn't matter how much money you had. If you were from West Virginia and you wanted to go to college -- and this
was especially true for kids in central West Virginia -- then Glenville would find a way to take you in."
In "Lighthouse on the Hill," Wells described many of the outstanding teachers, the characters and the customs that shaped the
deep emotional attachment that Burke and countless others have for their alma mater.
Nate Rohrbough's basketball squads won 84 percent of the time from 1926 to 1942. The coach hauled the boys on winter
nights over treacherous roads in a rickety bus dubbed "Ferdinand."
Alma Janet Arbuckle, the beloved "Miss Alma", was college librarian from 1923 to 1955 and held forth as chief marshal of
Pioneer homecoming parades. "Victor, her beautiful sorrel horse, proudly carried Miss Alma at the front of the annual event,"
Wells noted.
"Willa Brand was an English professor and de facto dean of women," he added. "She made sure that her Glenville students
were well-mannered, well- groomed, well-educated, and, by the time of graduation, well ready to be done with her
admonitions."
George Firestone (1865-1938), was college janitor for 44 years. "He regulated class periods by tapping a large dinner bell
placed outside the building," wrote Wells.
In 1945, beanie-clad freshman Billy Burke ran afoul of the Student Government Association code of conduct. For neglecting
to say the first "Hi" upon encountering an upperclassman, Burke was forced to wear unmatched socks and rolled-up trousers
for a day.
Now 75, Burke tends cattle with his wife, Marge, on their 239-acre farm in Sand Fork. Like her, he served 13 years in the
House of Delegates, including a period as finance chairman.
"You had better believe that if we'd been down there last week, that bill would have never come flying out of the House," she
said.
Espy Miller, 88, a son of Mill Creek, Randolph County, graduated from Concord in 1937, picked up a master's at
Northwestern in 1940, served his country for four years in World War II, and acquired a Ph.D. from Ohio State in 1959.
Miller was an English professor and department chair during his 30-year career at Glenville. Wells noted the high
expectations that Miller set for students, and their reverence and affection for him.
Miller has little regard for the faddism that has swept the groves of academe, and even less for policymakers who think the
school to which he devoted his life is obsolete or expendable.
"We're still basically a teachers college, and we're the only state college in central West Virginia," he said. "There ought to be
a place for us."
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